The power systems of electrical power companies regularly encounter periods of peak load demand. During these periods the power drain placed upon the power system is significantly higher than average. It is excessively costly to maintain the supply of power during peak load periods. Electrical power production is most inefficient during these periods. Moreover, there is added cost in the construction of power generating facilities as they must be built to accommodate maximum power consumption. Failure to meet peak demands can result in power failure or blackout.
Significant overall savings can be obtained where peak power demands are reduced and spread out over a period of time. To achieve this result, load management systems monitor the power supply and demand and selectively turn off deferrable loads, such as water heaters and air conditioners, during peak load periods to evenly distribute the power demand over time. In a typical load management system, remote load controllers are addressed by omnidirectional radio transmissions from a central unit. Transmissions are received and decoded by the remote controller units which selectively control the functions of particular loads in response to the commands transmitted by the central unit. Power consumption is monitored at various points in the power network and the load data acquired is relayed to the central control unit via telephone lines. Such systems in the prior art are limited in their capacity to efficiently cover some power networks where the central control unit is not centrally located or where the network has an elongated configuration and by the availability and high cost of phone lines in remote regions.